The biggest-selling pop record in Britain in 1989 was Ride On Time by Black Box. The highlight of the track was the piercing vocal sound, sampled by its Italian producers from a recording by the African American singer Loleatta Holloway, who has died from heart failure, aged 64. Born in Chicago, she joined the Holloway Community Singers, a 100-strong gospel choir led by her mother, as a child. From the age of five, Holloway was a featured soloist, although she later said: "I hated my voice because I sounded like a grown woman, not a child."

After graduating from high school, she worked at various jobs, including bookbinding, while continuing singing gospel. After her mother's death in 1966, Holloway was recruited to the Caravans, America's leading gospel group, by its founder, Albertina Walker. Touring with the group, she met Aretha Franklin, with whom the Caravans performed in Las Vegas. When Walker disbanded the Caravans in 1972, Holloway turned to secular music under the tutelage of her future husband, the songwriter and producer Floyd Smith. She also appeared in the Chicago cast of the Broadway musical Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope.

Smith took her to the Aware label in Atlanta, Georgia, where she recorded two albums, Loleatta Holloway (1973) and Cry to Me (1975). The title track of the latter, composed by Sam Dees, is a soul classic with impassioned vocals, as is her recording of another Dees song, Worn Out Broken Heart.

In the late 1970s, with the Philadelphia producer Norman Harris, she recorded for Gold Mind. Among her disco hits were Run Away, Hit and Run (both 1977), Seconds (1982) and Love Sensation (1980), written and produced by Dan Hartman. Holloway said of the 1980 recording session that "it was the hardest song I ever sang, I had to do it so many times, I lost my voice. I couldn't even talk the second day, so I told him to get me some Vicks vapour rub. I swallowed it with some coffee and that's how I was able to hold the notes so long."

She performed frequently at New York clubs, but also recorded soul ballads, enjoying a top 20 US hit in 1978 with Only You, a duet with Bunny Sigler.

Digital sampling was in its infancy when the Italian production team Groove Groove Melody used Holloway's sound from Love Sensation for Ride On Time, which stayed at No 1 in Britain for six weeks. The sample was taken without permission, Holloway sued and settled out of court. However, she remained resentful, recalling that "there was a venue that had Black Box one night and then me the next week as 'the voice of Black Box' and they paid them more than me!"

The success of Ride On Time encouraged legitimate sampling of Holloway. In 1991, Love Sensation was again mined for the US No 1, and UK top 20, hit Good Vibrations by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, with the future actor Mark Wahlberg. The following year, her voice featured on another Italian-constructed UK hit, Take Me Away by Cappella. And in 2009, her 1976 record We're Getting Stronger was sampled for Whitney Houston's Million Dollar Bill.

During the 1980s and 90s, Holloway continued to perform at dance clubs and festivals and in 1998, the British group Fire Island invited her to appear on their track Shout to the Top, which made the top 30.

In 1996, Holloway had a quadruple bypass operation, but returned to her musical career the following year. She is survived by three sons, a daughter and nine grandchildren. Floyd Smith died in 1982.